Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Efficient learning of lattice gauge theories with fermions

Shreya Shukla*, Yukari Yamauchi†, Andrey Y. Lokhov‡, Scott Lawrence§, and Abhijith Jayakumar∥

  • *Contact author: sshukla@lanl.gov
  • †Contact author: yyamauchi@lanl.gov
  • ‡Contact author: lokhov@lanl.gov
  • §Contact author: srlawrence@lanl.gov
  • ∥Contact author: abhijithj@lanl.gov

Phys. Rev. D 114, 014514 – Published 28 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/xlz6-yzxc

Abstract

We introduce a learning method for recovering action parameters in lattice field theories. Our method is based on the minimization of a convex loss function constructed using the Schwinger-Dyson relations. We show that score matching, a popular learning method, is a special case of our construction of an infinite family of valid loss functions. Importantly, our general Schwinger-Dyson-based construction applies to gauge theories and models with Grassmann-valued fields used to represent dynamical fermions. In particular, we extend our method to realistic lattice field theories including quantum chromodynamics.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (28)

  1. P. E. Shanahan, A. Trewartha, and W. Detmold, Machine learning action parameters in lattice quantum chromodynamics, Phys. Rev. D 97, 094506 (2018).
  2. S. Shukla, A. Jayakumar, and A. Y. Lokhov, Learning of statistical field theories, arXiv:2511.09859.
  3. M. Moshe and J. Zinn-Justin, Quantum field theory in the large N limit: A review, Phys. Rep. 385, 69 (2003).
  4. R. H. Swendsen, Monte Carlo renormalization group, Phys. Rev. Lett. 42, 859 (1979).
  5. N. Dupuis, L. Canet, A. Eichhorn, W. Metzner, J. M. Pawlowski, M. Tissier, and N. Wschebor, The nonperturbative functional renormalization group and its applications, Phys. Rep. 910, 1 (2021).
  6. A. Y. Lokhov, M. Vuffray, S. Misra, and M. Chertkov, Optimal structure and parameter learning of ising models, Sci. Adv. 4, e1700791 (2018).
  7. A. Hyvärinen, Estimation of non-normalized statistical models by score matching, J. Mach. Learn. Res. 6, 695 (2005).
  8. S. Lawrence, Schwinger-Dyson control variates for lattice fermions, arXiv:2404.10707.
  9. T. Bhattacharya, S. Lawrence, and J.-S. Yoo, Control variates for lattice field theory, Phys. Rev. D 109, L031505 (2024).
  10. P. F. Bedaque and H. Oh, Leveraging neural control variates for enhanced precision in lattice field theory, Phys. Rev. D 109, 094519 (2024).
  11. F. J. Dyson, The s matrix in quantum electrodynamics, Phys. Rev. 75, 1736 (1949).
  12. J. Schwinger, On the Green’s functions of quantized fields. I, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 37, 452 (1951).
  13. J. Schwinger, On the Green’s functions of quantized fields. II, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 37, 455 (1951).
  14. M. E. Peskin and D. V. Schroeder, An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory (Addison-Wesley, Reading, USA, 1995).
  15. J. B. Kogut and L. Susskind, Hamiltonian formulation of Wilson’s lattice gauge theories, Phys. Rev. D 11, 395 (1975).
  16. K. G. Wilson, Confinement of quarks, Phys. Rev. D 10, 2445 (1974).
  17. C. Gattringer and C. B. Lang, Quantum Chromodynamics on the Lattice: An Introductory Presentation, Lecture Notes in Physics Vol. 788 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010).
  18. I. Montvay and G. Münster, Quantum Fields on a Lattice, Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1994).
  19. A. Jayakumar, A. Y. Lokhov, S. Misra, and M. Vuffray, Discrete distributions are learnable from metastable samples, arXiv:2410.13800.
  20. S. Lawrence and Y. Yamauchi, Normalizing flows and the real-time sign problem, Phys. Rev. D 103, 114509 (2021).
  21. G. Kanwar and M. L. Wagman, Real-time lattice gauge theory actions: Unitarity, convergence, and path integral contour deformations, Phys. Rev. D 104, 014513 (2021).
  22. X.-L. Qi and D. Ranard, Determining a local Hamiltonian from a single eigenstate, Quantum 3, 159 (2019).
  23. A. Bakshi, A. Liu, A. Moitra, and E. Tang, Learning quantum Hamiltonians at any temperature in polynomial time, in 56th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (2023), arXiv:2310.02243.
  24. S. Lawrence, R. Weller, C. Peterson, and P. Romatschke, Instantons, analytic continuation, and PT-symmetric field theory, Phys. Rev. D 108, 085013 (2023).
  25. G. W. Gibbons, S. W. Hawking, and M. J. Perry, Path integrals and the indefiniteness of the gravitational action, Nucl. Phys. B138, 141 (1978).
  26. M. Kontsevich and G. Segal, Wick rotation and the positivity of energy in quantum field theory, Q. J. Math. Oxford Ser. 72, 673 (2021).
  27. E. Witten, A note on complex spacetime metrics, arXiv:2111.06514.
  28. B. Banihashemi and T. Jacobson, On the lapse contour in the gravitational path integral, Phys. Rev. D 111, 066014 (2025).

Outline

Information

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation